• Indigenous Education/Pedagogy

Overview

Potential Courses (subject to student and committee modification)

ANS/ED 461 Native Ways of Knowing (3 Credits) Focus on how culture and worldview shape who we are and influence the way we come to know the world around us. Emphasis on Alaska Native knowledge systems and ways of knowing. (Prerequisite: Upper-division standing.)

ED/CCS 610 Education and Cultural Processes (3 credits) Advanced study of the function of education as a cultural process and its relation to other aspects of a cultural system. Students will be required to prepare a study in which they examine some aspect of education in a particular cultural context.

ED/CCS 611 Culture , Cognition and Knowledge Acquisiton (3 credits) An examination of the relationship between learning, thinking and perception in multicultural contexts. Particular emphasis will be on the implications of these relationships for schooling. Content will focus on cultural influences on perception, conceptual processes, learning, memory and problem solving. Content will also reflect concern for practical teaching problems. (Prerequisite: ED 610 recommended.)

ED/CCS 613 Alaska Standards for Culturally Responsive Schools (3 Credits) Guidelines, rationale and resources for adapting educational policies, programs and practices to better address the cultural well-being of the students and communities they serve. Content will be grounded in the Alaska Standards for Culturally Responsive Schools, including standards for students, teachers, curriculum, schools and communities.

ED 631 Small Schools Curriculum Design (3 credits) Salient issues involved with the development of effective programs of instruction in small schools, including foundational design, conceptual models, organizational strategies, technical skills, current issues and trends, and their implications and application to the environment of rural Alaska.

ED/NORS 680 Comparative Education (3 Credits) Analysis of international systems of public education. Issues addressed include social context, ethnicity, gender, ideology, international power, level of development, current issues and problems, and efforts toward reform.

ED 681 Place Based Education (3 Credits) An examination of the relationship between local landscape and community, and the development of human perception. Emphasis on the importance of the development of ecologically appropriate community-based educational programs in rural and urban schools. Priority placed on project-centered programs lending themselves to experimental learning opportunities. Includes literature review, discussion, curriculum exploration and design, and on-site community exploration of active place-based educational programs.